The mum who was brutally attacked by a shark earlier this year has shared details of the gruesome encounter for the first time.
Leah Stewart, 34, was mauled by what is believed to have been a 3.5m great white shark on June 13.
She was swimming less than 30 metres offshore and inside the flags at Sydney’s popular Coogee Beach at the time.
Ms Stewart sustained “severe and life-threatening injuries” and suffered bites to her arms and legs, significant blood loss, and fractures throughout her body.
The 34-year-old mother of August has since undergone several surgeries, including an amputation of her arm.
Ms Stewart appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday night, recounting the terrifying experience to Tracey Grimshaw, supported by her partner, Fernando.
While in the water, she said she heard a “shrill shriek” from a woman nearby.
“I turned and there was a huge, huge fin behind her, it was massive,” Ms Stewart said.
After starting to swim back to shore, she said she felt something and stopped.
“I could feel movement in the water and I turned around and it was right there,” she said.
Describing the shark, which she said ended up about “30 centimetres from her face”, Ms Stewart said she would never forget it.
“I’ll never forget its face,” she said.
“It was huge and its teeth and its mouth was massive and its eyes, it’s just black little beady eyes, we were just looking face-to-face.”
At that moment, Ms Stewart said she had to make an important choice.
In order to protect her face, she needed to assess which limb she was “willing to lose”.
As a right-handed person, she decided to throw a left hook at the shark, which immediately latched onto her arm and shredded it
Then, the shark bit her thigh and pulled her under.
“When it was holding on to my leg I had the thought, ‘This is it. This is how I die’,” the 34-year-old said.
“Then I just thought of August and I thought, ‘She’s not going to have a mum. She’s going to grow up without a mum’, and I couldn’t handle that.
“I didn’t want her not to have a mum, so I just thought, ‘I’ve got to fight it. I’m going to do everything I can to be here’.
“I just started punching it over and over and over again, just punch, punch, punch.
“It was like fighting a dinosaur, it was so big. It was like punching a brick wall.”
The attack was the first at Coogee Beach in more than a century and left Ms Stewart critically injured.
World champion paddleboarder Charlie Verco was at Coogee Beach that way and was one of the first to help Ms Stewart after the shark let go of her.
“The biggest thing for me, that was scary at that point is there was so much blood in the water that I couldn’t see into it anymore,” he said.
“I didn’t like the idea of paddling straight into the middle of it, and not being able to see and react to where the shark was underneath us.”
While Ms Stewart said she could not remember being rescued, she remembered being worried the shark was going to come back for more.
“As he was doing that, I’m just waiting for the shark to come grab onto my legs and pull me back,” she said.
“But … thank goodness, I got the world record holder for paddling.”
Meanwhile, Coogee Surf Life Saving Club then-president Ben Heenan had just finished a swim with his partner, Doctor Kassandra McGregor, when they realised what had happened.
“(We) heard more intense screaming, splashing, and started seeing red in the water and knew that a shark attack had happened,” Mr Heenan told 60 Minutes.
He ran into the water with a board while Dr McGregor called triple-0.
Trauma specialist Dr Ian Ferguson was also nearby, having stopped for a coffee before taking his daughter to dance class.
Riot squad officers patrolling the beach joined the emergency response as well.
Mr Heenan helped bring Ms Stewart from the surf, putting her within reach of the strangers on the sand whose quick actions helped keep her alive.
Ms Stewart had lost so much blood that doctors could not find a vein, so Dr Ferguson drilled into the bone marrow of both shoulders to get fluids and later blood into her body, a procedure credited with saving her life.
“I was hopeful that she would survive to hospital, but I didn’t think it was a given at that point,” Dr Ferguson said.
The shark tore away the outside muscle of her left thigh. Her left arm was so badly damaged it had to be amputated. Her right hand was also severely injured, with serious nerve and tendon damage.
She was taken to hospital in an extremely dire condition.
Her family then spent 10 days waiting as she underwent 11 surgeries, including skin grafts to the large wound in her thigh. Even while in a coma, she remained trapped in the trauma of the attack.
“When I was in the coma, I was half present and I drift in and out of darkness to reliving the shark attack over and over again,” Ms Stewart said.
When she woke, she already knew she had lost her arm.
“I looked to them and I said, ‘Oh, I’m getting phantom pain’,” she said.
“They looked at me and they’re like, ‘What do you mean you’re getting phantom pain?’ and I just said, ‘because the shark took my arm’.”
Ms Stewart is now back on her feet and learning to use her injured hand again. Before leaving hospital, she wrote thank you cards to the people who saved her.
She also made clear how she wants to be remembered.
“I’m not a girl that got mauled on the beach,” she said.
“I’m the woman that punched the shark in the face.
“I’m the woman that fought like hell to be here, to be here for August, and it was the hardest thing in the world, but I fought my way out of there.”
A GoFundMe was established for Ms Stewart’s family in the wake of the horrific tragedy and raised $558,925 before donations were paused on 23 August.
Ms Stewart wrote to donors that she had been “constantly overwhelmed” by everyone’s kindness, generosity, and support.
“What you’ve offered has given us enough to recover, to stay in our home, and to give us options for further medical treatment down the road,” she wrote.
“I still have a long way to go, but my recovery has been remarkable, and a huge part of that is because of the absolute army of love, support, prayers and encouragement surrounding my family and I from all over the world.”
- With NCA
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